Decorative acoustical materials



Jan. 13, 1959 l jQLABlNO DECORATIVE ACOUSTICAL MATERIALS 2 Sheets-Sheet1 Filed Jan. s, 1956 1 R 5 w W Rx 1 I v G i m: to m m hmmm m mu m Jan.13, 1959 D. LABINO 2,868,684

DECORATIVE ACOUSTICAL MATERIALS Filed Jan. 3, 1956 V 2 Sheets-Sheet 2- ATI'ORNE YS United States Patent DECORATIVE ACOUSTICAL MATERIALS DominickLabino, Maumee, Ohio, assignor to L-O-F Gflags Fibers Company, Toledo,Ohio, a corporation hio Application January 3, 1956, Serial No. 556,957

8 Claims. (Cl. 154 ,45.9)

This invention relates to a glass fiber products and particularly toglass filber products such as ceiling tile, wall board and similarmaterials; the invention is also concerned with methods of producingsuch products.

The invention is further directed to novel thin mat products of glasshaving particular utility in'conjunction with ceiling tile and wallboard for example.

Products like ceiling tile are required to present a clean anddecorative surface and frequently the marketability of such items isvery considerably dependent upon keeping maintenance costs for suchproducts at a minimum. This invention particularly contemplates theprovision in combination with a non-woven staple glass fiber body of athin flexible mat of glass fibers which mat provides a plurality ofdesirable qualities.

The thin mat of the invention'is somewhat porous, non-inflammable andexhibits a surface which is highly receptive to surface finish coatings.The micro diameter fibers of the mat are absorbent and will take up asmuch as twenty times their own weight of surface finish. However interms of finish this is relatively little as the mat and the absorbentfibers are themselves extremely light in weight.

Further, in the preferred mat there are incorporated with the absorbentfibers non-absorbent filaments of glass which give to the mat anincreased rigidity and a very desirable strength characteristic.

The mat itself most suitably has a thickness in the range of 0.003 to0.010 of an inch and may be constituted substantially wholly of theabsorbent micro fibers, which are staple glass fibers having a diameter,in accordance with this invention, of less than 2 microns and preferablyless than one micron average.

As noted the mat may suitably have incorporated therein lengths offilaments which filaments may be chopped into relatively short pieces ormay be substantially continuous. The percentage of absorbent microfibers in the mat may be as low as 33 percent of the mat Weight,depending upon the particular application to which the mat is to beapplied. In general the mat itself has a weight of between /2 to 1 /2pounds per hundred square feet, whether or not the filaments areincluded with the absorbent micro fibers.

In connection with the filaments it is to be noted that not only do thefilaments, whether chopped or of continuous length, give considerablestrength to the mat, but the continuous filaments in addition provide adesirable wrinkle texture in the mat, which texture is useful in manydecorative applications.

A particular feature of the mat is that while it is clearly absorbent,the amount of surface finish material which is required to cover the matis relatively small. This is because the Weight of the mat itself is lowand the. absolute quantity of finish which is absorbed is low althoughrelatively high in relation to the weight of the mat.

In connection with the surface finishing it is the staple fibers of themat which are absorbent and tenaciously pick up the surface coatings;the longer filamentary r6 ice bodies when employed merely being coatedwith the surfacing material, since these longer drawn glass filamentsare substantially nonabsorbent.

The thin mat is readily bondable to glass fiber backings of a variety ofarrangements and provides, in conjunction with such backings, mostsuitable tiling and ceiling material; the mat functioning as a portionof a normal backing. The backing itself may be a rigid bonded glassfiber body or a high density resilient body of glass fibers; the densityusually of such backings being between about 3 to 6 pounds per cubicfoot.

Preferably a bonding agent secures the mat to the backing. The backingis also considerably greater in thickness than the mat and of greaterweight. However, the mat itself is of considerably tenacity due to thecoherence of the fibers constituting the mat and the mat is fullycapable of sustaining the stress exerted by the backing.

The invention will be more fully understood by reference to thefollowing detailed description and accompanying drawing wherein:

Figure 1 schematically illustrates apparatus useful in the practice ofthe method of invention;

'Figure 2 is a cross-sectional view illustrating schematically theproduct of the invention;

Figure 3 schematically illustrates apparatus useful in the production ofthe thin mat of this invention; and

Figure 4 is a perspective view illustrating the thin mat of thisinvention.

In the preferred embodiment of the invention both the backing and themat contain staple glass fiberthat is fiber which is flame blown fromthe filamentary glass forrnand in addition the thin mat most suitablyhas glass filaments extending throughout the body thereof. The backingitself may be composed of drawn glass filaments, if desired, but thestaple fiber form offers advantages in ceiling tile applications withrespect to sound absorption, for example.

The staple glass fiber backing is suitably constituted of blown fibershaving a diameter of 29 microns and a length of about 2-3 inches. Ingeneral the backing will have a thickness of 4-7 inches.

In contrast to the backing the thin mat is preferably comprised ofabsorbent staple fibers having an average diameter in the sub-micronrange and substantially all of the fibers are less than one micron indiameter, although fibers up to about, but not greater than about 2microns, are useful and are included in the term micro as employed inthis application. Most suitably the thin mat fibers average between to 1/2 microns in diameter and only occasional fibers exceed 1 microndiameter. The length of such fibers is extremely short about to A inchand the fibers are soft, flexible and readily cohere to produce a strongweb having a smooth face, particularly so, if the web is compacted byrolling or otherwise pressing the fibers. As already noted most suitablythe thin mat has a thickness of between 0.003 to 0.010 inch and weighsbetween about /2 to 1 /2 pounds per square feet.

While the micro fibers alone are useful in the invention, it ispreferred to incorporate in the mat some bundles of flexible glassfilaments which tend to stiffen and strengthen the mat. These filamentsmay be in roving form, that is a bundle may contain 204 parallelarranged fine filaments, or the bundles may be constiis surrounded byinsulation in which there is positioned induction heating coils 7supplied with energy from a suitable source (not shown).

The base of the glass melting pot is provided at 9 with nipples throughwhich filaments 11 are drawnp ast a guide roll 13 by cooperating drawingrollslS, 17.. The filaments pass in substantially parallel relation andare presented to the hot gaseous blast 21 emanating from a burner 23,which burner may suitably exhibit a temperature of 3000-3200 F. at a gasblast velocity of l6Q0-l800ifeet per second.

The effect of the blast is to soften and attenuate the filaments and tocause short length staple glass fibers in the range of 2 to 9 microns toenter the conduit 25. A spray head indicated at-24 may be suitablysupplied with a phenolic resin, for example, to coat the fibers astheypass through the conduit. 7

At the remote end of the conduit as indicated at 27 a suction hood isprovided which causes the blown fibers to be drawn to a belt 29supported on the rollers 31 for movement. The blown fibers form abacking body 33 which is advanced rightwardly beneath an infra redheating unit indicated at 35; the heating unit serves to expel anymoisture or solvent from the material constituting the formed body offibers 33 which is to constit-ute the backing of the composite product.

A belt 37 supported on rollers 39 receives the entangled staple glassfibers of the backing 33 and the backing is advanced under spray headsindicated at 41 which provide on the surface a glue in the form ofavinyl resinous material for example. The glue emanating from the sprayheads 41 may suitably consist of a vinyl-chloride vinyl-acetatecopolymer in methylethyl ketone, in the proportion of methyl ethylketone to the copolymer by weight of between about 2:1. The vinyl gluemay also contain up to about 5 percent di-octylphthalate as aplasticizer if so desired. In addition to the vinyls other suitableadditives known to the art, as

the urea formaldehydes, the styrenes or the. melamines.

may be employed if desired.

Positioned at 42 is a guide roller beneath which a sheet from a roll ofmat 43 comprised of absorbent fibers passes into contact with a bondingagent-covered backing body. A spray head 44 supplies to the uppersurface of the mat 43 a finish, which may suitably take the form of analuminum paint or coating of a vinyl resin for example. Substantiallyany suitable surface finishing may be applied to the mat.

With respect to the coating deposited from the spray head 44. the sameis most suitable, for indoor applications, of a whitish paint material,as such itself is readily decorable by other paints or surface finishesif so desired.

A belt 45 mounted on rollers 47 supports the composite body as the, sameis passed to chain 48 of oven 49 wherein the paint is dried, and anyresidual solvent from the resin solution is driven out through therelatively porous backing body. At the same time the phenolicbondingagent becomes cured providing a relatively rigid backing. At theexit of the oven a table 51 supports the, composite productand a knife53 is arranged to cut the same into convenient lengths.

Referring now to Figure 2, which is a cross-sectional view of theproduct of invention, the numeral 55 indicates the backing body, thenumeral 57 the bonding agent, the numeral 59 the thin staple fiber mat,and the numeral 61 the surface finish. It is to be understood that thesurface finish maybe applied to the re,- mainder of the composite bodyeither in the course of manufacture or during installation.

The absorbent exposed smooth surface 61 of. the mat"- mat, a more denseproduct being desirable in some sound insulation installations; in allcases, however, the backing is considerably thicker than the mat itself.The production of the backing which has the relatively large fiberstherein is less expensive than would be the production of a backinghaving all submicron diameter fibers.

It is to be noted that where resins are used in the backing, the mateffectively covers, for example, the yellow of the phenolic resins; thusa white mat surface of finefibers vis presented on the surface of thefinished material.

In connection with the belts 29, 37,45 they may be driven;at'anysuitable speeds, and the lineal velocity of the belts together with therate at which the fibers pass to the belt will determine the thicknessof the backing 33. Accordingly, if desired, suitable apparatus may beprovided to permit changes of belt speed. Such is well known to the artand the same need not be described in'detail. v

It is to be noted that in the employment of the product of invention asa ceiling tile the mat will face downwardly and accordingly must sustaina major portion of the weight of the backing itself.

While the bonding agent referred to hereinbefore is entirely suitable toretain the mat and backing in combination, this' retention may also beaccomplished mechanically as with strapping, but such renders thesurface non-uniform and somewhat unsightly, and accord ingly in theabsence of such a bonding agent the thin mat bears substantially all ofthe stresses from the weight of the backing. The thin mat being composedof very small and coherent fibers has however very considerable tensilestrength even in the thin section and is entirely adequate for thepurpose. I

To supplement the strength of the mat it is preferable that the mat 43shown in Figure 1 be constituted of both stapleglass fibers having thediameters already noted and filamentary glass. The production of such amat is illustrated in Figure 3.

Referring to Figure 3 it will be noted that drawing rolls 63, 65 receivetherethrough in the manner of Figure 1 a plurality of parallel arrangedglass filaments 67 which are passed over the lower edge of a guide block69 and presentedto hot gaseous blast 71 emanating from a burner 73. Thegaseous blast may suitably have the temperature of 3300'-3500 F. and avelocity of 1800-2000 feet per second. The filaments received in theblast are softened and attenuated thereby and blown into conduit 75 fromwhence they pass to a collecting belt 77.

In the leftward portion of the conduit at 75 there is indicated anopening 81 through which chopped continuous strand is fed by chopper 81into the blast in the conduit 75; The chopped strand enters the conduitat a point sufficiently remote from the burner 73 such that it issubstantially unaffected by the heat and carried as bundles of filamentsin the conduit to the fine mesh screen belt 77 with the staple fibersproduced from the filaments67. As the staple fibers and chopped strandpass to the belt they are subjected to aspray of a resin such as phenolformaldehyde, for example, which coats the fibers and bond the same:intimately together. portedon rollers 73 one of 'whichis' driven bymeans (not shown) in the direction indicated by the arrow. Thus a:

thin mat-85 is formed which passes on the belt to a roller 87 to bewithdrawn from the belt and Wound up in any suitablemanner asindicated'g'enerally at 89.

In-this method of producing the mat the -'absorbent- The belt '77' issuitably sup staple fibers may suitably constitute .6 of the weight ofthe mat and the relationship between the weights of the absorbent staplefibers and the non-absorbent continuous glass filaments is controlled byregulation of the speed of the drawing rolls 63, 65 relative to thespeed of the chopping unit 83. The amount of chopped strand present inthe mat is not critical to the practice of the invention, but in orderto attain the mat product shown in Figure 4 the proportion of staplefibers in the mat should not be greater than about 70 percent by weight,and preferably is about 70 percent by weight, and preferably is about33-45 per- .cent by weight of the mat.

Referring now to Figure 4, it will be noted that the mat illustratedtherein is provided with av wrinkle effect on its lower surface. Thiswrinkle effect is considered to be present in the thin mat due tounrelieved tensions in the mat, the tensions being unrelieved because ofthe continuous nature of the filaments in the cho ped strand. The effectas illustrated in Figure 4 is most clearly noticeable when the mats arethin, that is, on the order of 0.003-0.005 inch in thickness.

Referring now more specifically to Figure 4 the numeral 91 indicates themat generally, the numeral 93 indicates the back of the mat, the numeral95 indicates chopped strand extending over the mat surface, while thenumeral 97 indicates the wrinkles on the face of the mat. It is to benoted that the back of the mat 93 is that which was formed on the screenbelt 77. While the wrinkles appear on the free face of the mat the typeof belt does not appear to be critical to the formation of these wrinkleefects.

ln specific application the wrinkle product of Figure 4 had a thicknessof about 0.004 of an inch, a weight of 1 pound per 100 square feet, andthe mat was constituted of about 33 percent of staple fibers of anaverage diameter of about 0.75 micron; binder was present to the extentof about percent by weight and the balance was chopped strand.

It is also to be considered within the scope of this invention to feedcontinuous glass strands into the opening 81 of the hood 75 of Figure 3to provide reinforcement to the mat 85. This can be done by introducingthe continuous strand so that it assumes a random or haphazarddistribution throughout the staple fibers of mat 85. Additionally suchcontinuous strand can be fed in parallel arrangement into the hood 75 tobe laid into or on the body of mat 85 in a uniform pattern.

It will be understood that this invention is susceptible to modificationin order to adopt it to different usages and conditions and accordingly,it.is desired to comprehend such modifications within this invention asmay fall within the scope of the appended claims.

I claim:

1. As an article of manufacture, a composite product of a non-wovenstaple glass fiber backing having a facing of a thin flexible mat ofglass fibers, said mat comprising an admixture of staple glass fibers ofa diameter in the range of 0.3 to 2.0 microns, a length in the range ofA to A inch, and multi-filament glass strand, and a bonding agentadhering the fibers of the mat to each other at their points of contactand adhering the mat to the backing.

2. An article of manufacture as defined in claim 1, gherein thesurfacing mat is coated with a. decorative nish.

3. An article of manufacture as defined in claim 1, whlelrein the facingmat is of a thickness of 0.003 to 0.010 inc 4. As an article ofmanufacture, a composite product of a non-Woven staple glass fiberbacking having a facing of a thin flexible mat of glass fibers on asurface thereof, said mat comprising an admixture of staple glass fibersof an average diameter of 0.3 to 0.7 micron and a length of to A inch,and multi-filament continuous strand in chopped form, and a bondingagent securing the fibers and strand together at their points of contactand bonding the mat to the backing.

5. In combination, a backing comprising a non-woven staple glass fibermat, a facing on a surface of the mat, said facing consisting of a thinweb-like sheet of glass fibers, said sheet comprising a mixture of 30 toby weight of staple glass fibers of a diameter in the range of 0.3 to2.0 microns and 30 to 70% by weight of multifilament continuous strand,and a bonding agent adhering the fibers of said sheet to each other attheir points of contact and to the backing.

6. As an article of manufacture, a composite product incorporating athick backing of mineral fibers, a bonding agent on a surface of thebacking, a thin flexible mat of cohering glass fibers secured to thebacking by the bonding agent and providing a substantially smooth fiberface which is adsorbent to finishes but not substantially absorbentthereto, said mat comprising an admixture of 30 to 70% by weight ofstaple glass fibers of a diameter in the range of 0.3 to 2 microns, from30 to 70% by weight of multi-filament continuous glass strand in choppedform, said mat having a thickness in the range of 0.003 to 0.010 inchand being bonded to said backing by said bonding agent.

' 7. As an article of manufacture, a composite product incorporating athick backing of glass fibers, and a bonding agent on a surface thereof,a thin flexible mat of cohering glass fibers secured to the backing bythe bonding agent and providing a substantially smooth face which isadsorbent to liquid finishes but not substantially absorbent thereto,said mat comprising in admixture 30 to 70% by weight of staple glassfibers of an average diameter in the range from 0.3 to 0.7 micron and ofa length of to 4 inch, and continuous multi-filament glass strand.

8. In combination, a thick backing of-glass fibers having a thin coatingof bonding agent on a surface thereof, a thin flexible mat of coheringglass fibers secured to the backing by said bonding agent and providinga substantially smooth face which is adsorbent to surface finishes butnot substantially absorbent thereto, said mat comprising an admixture ofstaple glass fibers of a diameter of 0.1 to 2 microns and a length of Ato A inch, and continuous length multi-filament glass strand, said matbeing of a thickness of 0.003 to 0.010 inch and being bonded togetherand to said backing by said bonding agent.

References Cited in the file of this patent UNITED STATES PATENTS2,393,947 Ximenez Jan. 29, 1946 2,477,555 Roberts et al. July 26, 19492,552,124 Tallman May 8, 1951 2,566,619 Lyon et a1. Sept. 4, 19512,694,025 Slayter et al. Nov. 9, 1954 2,728,699 Labino' Dec. 27, 19552,731,066 Hogendobler et al. Jan. 17, 1956 2,744,044 Toulmin May 1, 19562,751,962 Drummond June 26, 1956 2,782,465 Palmer Feb. 26, 1957

1. AS AN ARTICLE OF MANUFACTURE, A COMPOSITE PRODUCT OF A NON-WOVENSTAPLE GLASS FIBER BACKING HAVING A FACING OF A THIN FLEXIBLE MAT OFGLASS FIBERS, SAID MAT COMPRISING AN ADMIXTURE OF STAPLE GLASS FIBERS OFA DIAMETER IN THE RANGE OF 0.3 TO 2.0 MICRONS, A LENGTH IN THE RANGE OF1/16 TO 1/4 INCH, AND MULTI-FILAMENT GLASS STRAND, AND A BONDING AGENTADHERING THE FIBERS OF THE MAT TO EACH OTHER AT THEIR POINTS OF CONTACTAND ADHERING THE MAT TO THE BACKING.